Poem: Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.
This poem is one of Swift’s masterpieces. His savage wit, his ruthless dissection of human motives, his arrogance–and his self-contempt–all combine to produce a masterful satire.
Category: Poetry
Poems: Autumn
The thistledown’s flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill
Poem: Robert Burns’ “Halloween”
Burn’s colorful description of traditional Halloween customs conveys both the eeriness and the wholesomeness of Scottish Halloweens.
Poetry: George Meredith
Meredith is best known as the author of such novels as The Ordeal of Richard Feverel and The Egoist, but he was also, at his best, a fine poet. Unfortunately, much of his poetry is more like fiction in verse.
Poems by Patrick Kavanagh
Born in rural Ireland (the town of Inniskeen) in 1904, Patrick Kavanagh was a poet, novelist, goalkeeper, and film critic. In my not so humble opinon, he was by far the best Irish poet since Yeats. There is more truth in “Epic” than an in hundred literary articles on Homer.
Poems by Edmund Blunden
Edmund Blunden was born in in 1896 in London and saw combat service in WW I. He was the lifelong friend of Siegfried Sassoon. In 1924 he became an English professor at the University of Tokyo, returned at the end of WWII, and accepted a position at Honk Kong. He returned to England and died in 1974.
Poems by Vachel Lindsay
Vachel Lindsay is an American original. He tramped his way through middle America selling his pamphlet, “Rhymes for Bread”. He was quite mad and killed himself for love of Sarah Teasdale. His son lived on Johns Island, SC, and I knew VL’s granddaughter in college.
